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Denver venture The Source collects artisans, foodies under one roof

Billy Wolfe serves Wayne Phipps at Comida. The upscale taqueria held a soft opening Aug. 26 at The Source, a new inventive space in a former 19th-century steel foundry at 3350 Brighton Blvd. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

For Denverites, that kind of sensory adventure requires a day in the car with several stops — a grocer here, a butcher there, a florist and restaurant later in the day. But not for much longer.

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The Source — a large cluster of local brewers, bakers, butchers, specialty grocers and more, all sharing space in an old 19th-century steel foundry on Brighton Boulevard — seeks to offer Denver foodies a one-stop destination for soup-to-nuts comestibles.

The Source officially opened its doors to the public last week when Comida, an upscale Mexican restaurant, began serving tacos and margaritas. During the next few weeks, the remaining tenants in the soaring, brick-walled space will follow.

They are tossing the dice — The Source is not in LoDo, Highland, Uptown or Cherry Creek, the traditional centers of Denver's food culture. It sits on a somewhat forlorn patch of gritty-but-lively RiNo (River North neighborhood, just north of downtown).

"You create your own reality," said Kyle Zeppelin, the son of longtime Denver developer Mickey Zeppelin and the principal engine behind The Source. Together, the two run Zeppelin Places.

"RiNo wants to be out of the mainstream; it wants an edge. Land here is cheaper. It's like an empty canvas."

The 26,000-square-foot industrial location helped the Zeppelins attract a measure of public financing from the city Downtown Urban Renewal Authority, which allows the developers to keep the sales taxes until $1.15 million gets collected. Once The Source reaches that number, sales taxes go back to city coffers.

Whether the project attracts the throngs of customers that it needs to thrive, and to pump fresh sales taxes into the city budget, remains to be seen. But the people involved, all independent businesses that pay rent and common fees like electricity to Zeppelin Places, are bullish on the prospects. Finally, they say, Denver will have its own food hall, like those in San Francisco and Seattle.

A RiNo destination?

"I sold my home in order to do this," said Rayme Rossello, the owner of Comida. Her restaurant began as a pink food truck that first roamed Boulder, then led to a much-celebrated restaurant in Longmont and now to The Source. "They were great with the branding, the design. I got to design the whole kitchen, the bar."

Rossello's spot, with a patio and a mezzanine level, seats more than 100; she hired about 30 people to work the new place.

"This is my dream," said Kevin Klinger, a third-generation butcher who spent 30 years working for supermarket chains before moving a few doors down from The Source to open MeatHead. He'll work behind the big glass wall separating his refrigerated world from the rest of The Source.

"I'll be able to deal with whole animals, to tell people you don't need to buy rib-eyes and T-bones," he said. "If you want something cut 3 inches thick, I'm cutting it 3 inches thick."

Foodies have been watching The Source with anticipation. "Sometimes you become the destination that everything pops up around. That is what I hope for them," said Denver food blogger and author Ruth Tobias. "I think they have really fought to get vendors that are representative of what Colorado is about right now, not just wholesale producers."

Tobias said that in Boston, where she used to live, the prominent food hall is Haymarket Square, a place filled with vegetables shipped in from Costa Rica and products that people could buy nearly anywhere. Haymarket, she said, always felt like a "missed opportunity," but The Source might be different.

"The only question is: Are Denverites too unfamiliar with that area to go over there?"

It is a good question. The project might have seemed like pure folly just five years ago, but the RiNo neighborhood is blossoming, in part thanks to Taxi, an interesting conglomeration of work spaces, dwellings and businesses developed by Zeppelin Places. If nothing else, The Source likely will draw from the people who work in Taxi's 80 businesses and live in its 44 residences. In the next year, an additional 60,000 square feet of office space is scheduled to open up at Taxi, as well as 50 new apartments.

In addition, The Denver Post reported this week that Great Divide Brewing Co., now in the Ballpark neighborhood, plans to expand dramatically and move the brewery to Brighton Boulevard, right across the street from The Source.

"RiNo is a shining example of what a new creative community looks like," said Councilwoman Judy Montero, who represents District 9 from her office within Taxi. "I'm really proud of it because it is different in a good way. It's an example of how we will build out our city in the future."

It was that sort of vision — that this stretch of weed-choked, chain-linked, glass-strewn Brighton Boulevard could become the next big thing — that attracted Bryan Dayton and Steve Redzikowski, the owners of much-lauded Oak at Fourteenth restaurant on Pearl Street in Boulder.

"It's an exciting part of Denver right now," said Dayton. "I was looking at The Populist (a RiNo restaurant) the other night, and it was busy. That area used to be a humming part of Denver, you can tell. It was part of the foundation of the city. I'm excited to bring that back. I'm scared to death, but I'm scared to death every time I open the doors at Oak. You've got to be aware of the cliff."

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